"Popular culture is a destructive element in our boys’ lives, but the emotional miseducation of boys begins much earlier and much closer to home. Most parents, relatives, teachers, and others who work or live with boys set out to teach them how to get along in the world and with one another. In the process of teaching them one thing, however, we often teach them another, quite different thing that ultimately works against their emotional potential. Traditional gender stereotypes are embedded in the way we respond to boys and teach them to respond to others. Whether unintentionally or deliberately, we tend to discourage emotional awareness in boys. Scientists who study the way parents shape their children’s emotional responses find that parents tend to have preconceived stereotypic gender notions even about infants (like the father we know who bragged to us that his son didn’t cry when he was circumcised). Because of this, parents provide a different emotional education for sons as opposed to daughters.
This has been shown to be true in a variety of contexts. Mothers speak about sadness and distress more with their daughters and about anger more with sons. And it shows. A study observing the talk of preschool aged children found that girls were six times more likely to use the word ‘love’, twice as likely to use the word ‘sad’, but equally likely to use the word ‘mad’. We know that mothers who explain their emotional reactions to their preschool children and who do not react negatively to a child’s vivid display of sadness, fear, or anger will have children who have a greater understanding of emotions. Research indicates that fathers tend to be even more rigid than mothers in steering their sons along traditional lines. Even older siblings, in an imitation of their parents, talk about feelings more frequently with their two-year-old sisters than with their two-year-old brothers.
Here’s how this gender socialization can look in its mildest, most ordinary form: Brad is four years old and has a question about everything. His mother fields most of these questions because she’s with him more often than his dad, and even when the whole family is together, she typically is the more verbally responsive of the two. She tries to give all questions equal attention, but what she doesn’t fully realize is that she, like any parent, subtly shapes the kinds of questions her child asks.
“Mommy, why do I have to sit in a car seat if you don’t?” he asks. She responds with a discussion of the safety advantages, and explains how it is against the law for children to ride in a car unless they ride in a car seat. Because of her thoughtful answer, Brad feels rewarded for asking about how things work, and is thereby encouraged to do it again sometime.
But in the park, when Brad points to a small boy who is crying and asks his mother why, she gives a much shorter and less animated answer. “I don’t know, Brad, he just is. Come on, let’s go. It’s not polite to stare.”
The truth is, Brad’s mother may not know why the little boy is crying, and she is teaching her son good manners when she tells him not to stare. But her short answer is less engaging, less informative, and less rewarding for her son. It subtly discourages him from thinking any further about why someone cries or what might have moved this particular child to tears. Her quick closure on the inquiry also may convey her own discomfort with the subject – a message boys frequently “hear” when fathers give short shrift to questions or observations about emotions.
Studies of parent interactions with both boys and girls suggest that, when a girl asks a question about emotions, her mother will give longer explanations. She’s more likely to speculate with her daughter about the reasons behind the emotion or to validate or amplify her daughter’s observation: “Yes, honey, he does look very sad. Maybe he’s got a little hurt, or he’s lost his toy… What do you think?” the message the daughter gets is that it’s okay to be concerned about another’s feelings; her natural concern and empathy are reinforced.
Boys experience this kind of emotional steering constantly."
